Trail Talk – May 9, 2018

The Saturday April 28th wildflower hike at Lobb’s had seven hikers out which outnumbered the wildflowers due to the cool two degree temperatures!

On Monday April 30th going down from Sharpes Creek Line across the snow drift, which was still a couple of feet deep, I saw scarlet (elf) cup mushrooms, though they are possibly sarcoscypha macaronesica rather than sarcoscypha coccinea. (It’s wonderful what you can discover through Wikipedia.) One of many things I enjoy about hiking our trails is there are often new discoveries even on a familiar trail. This is the first time I have noticed scarlet cup fungi although I have been on this section of trail more than 50 times.

The Tuesday Tromp May 1st was on the Blyth Greenway trail part of the G2G there were few wild flowers apart from large patches of bloodroot mixed in with domestic blue scilla. We saw one young groundhog scuttling across the road, one rabbit and lots of red winged blackbirds and robins as well as a few other birds. You can see daffodils along many of the trails and, although I have not so far seen a garter snake on a trail this year, we have at least two in our garden. On my Tuesday evening walk at Lobb’s, where there are still small remnants of ice, I saw the first trout lilies, sometimes called adder’s tongue or dog toothed violets. They are part of the lily family and occasionally are white rather than yellow. Clintonia are similar but don’t have mottled leaves and are named after New York State governor DeWitt Clinton rather than our local town. I also saw some blue cohosh (barberry family) which have tiny yellow-green to brown flowers, and are totally unrelated to black cohosh (buttercup family) which have large white flower spikes and bloom in August and can be seen on one of our area trails. I have no idea why they are both named cohosh.

On Wednesday May 2nd hike the trail from Auburn had a lot of bloodroot in bloom, a few violets and coltsfoot and no other blossoms at his time. We did disturb a grouse which flew away. In the afternoon at Bannockburn I saw my first trillium and marsh marigold of the year and saw two white trout lilies on the Smith loop. I have noticed that the early trillium have much shorter stalks than the later blossoming ones. By the time you read this many trilliums and marsh marigolds among other wildflowers will be in bloom.

My 1834 bird book classified birds into six main kinds, the rapacious kind, the pie kind, the sparrow, the ducks, the poultry and the crane kinds. I don’t think many birders would want birds to be so classified nowadays. Roger on his bird outings on the May 10th and 17th will be able to tell you the modern categories.

Note that the Bayfield Woodlands Trail is closed April 25th to May 31st for Turkey Hunting. There is also a closure until May 21st on the Maitland trail between 44 and 46 km due to a landslide.

Upcoming Hikes

Thursday May 10th and 17th at 6:30 PM Bird Watching Walk led by Roger Goddard. Meet at the Rock on N. Harbour Rd. Very slow pace, bring binoculars if you have them.

Point Farms offers a nice variety of terrain and views of the ravines and beach. The hike will depend on trail conditions. The plan will be to take the trail on the north side of the park road, make our way down to beach level and hike the lower trail, check out the beach, hike back up the hill and decide the best way back

Mid-Week Hikes

The Tuesday Trompers walk for about an hour at a moderate to slow pace starting at 9:00 AM. Contact Al Sanders at allan.sanders@hurontel.on.ca

The Wednesday hikes start at 9:00 AM for 1.5 to 2 hours at a moderately fast pace. Contact pcapper99@gmail.com

The Friday L.I.F.E. hikers usually meet at 8:15 at the Betty Cardno Centre in Clinton and hike for 1.5 hours to 2 hours, one group at a moderate the other group at a moderately fast pace. Contact cphillips@onecaresupport.ca

If you have questions or something of interest for Trail Talk email me Patrick Capper at pcapper99@gmail.com.